Elif Tekin Iftar earned her bachelor’s degree in 1991 from the Middle East Technical University’s Faculty of Education, Department of Guidance and Psychological Counseling. She completed her master’s degree in 1994 and received her doctorate in special education from Anadolu University in 1999.
In 2003, she was honored with the Distinguished Young Scientist Award and Scholarship by the Turkish Academy of Sciences as part of the Program to Encourage Outstanding Young Scientists. Between 1991 and 1994, she worked as a guidance counselor at the Ministry of National Education. She joined Anadolu University Disability Research Institute as a research assistant in 1994.
Her academic career advanced with the title of Associate Professor in Special Education in 2003, followed by the title of Professor in 2009. From 2007 to 2014, Tekin İftar served as the director of Anadolu University’s Research Institute on Disabilities. In 2011, she founded the Department of Applied Behavior Analysis at Anadolu University’s Institute of Social Sciences. In 2014, she established the Behavior Analysis Union of Turkey under the International Association for Behavior Analysis. Furthering her efforts in the field, she founded the Association of Applied Behavior Analysis of Turkey in 2020. She currently serves as the president of all three organizations.
Elif Tekin İftar is married and has two children.